Meg Tilly sets shyness aside

Posted at 5:25 PM on October 30, 2006
by Euan Kerr

Meg Tilly, former actor, Oscar nominee, and now author, says if she had her druthers, she would just stay home, living a quiet life with her family.

But she's on the road now, and she has a job of work to do, talking about her new novel "Gemma." In person Tilly is energetic to the point of hyperactivity, jumping from idea to idea, and occasionally stopping herself short to ask if she is making sense. There are some tasteflu flecks of silver in her hair, but in some ways she seems little different from Chloe in "The Big Chill."

She walked away from Hollywood more than a decade ago and says while she will never say never she doubts she will ever go back.

She seems quite sanguine about where life has pushed her. She began as a dancer, and even had a part in "Fame" before a back injury ended that career. She turned to acting, and again suffered a stroke of injury bad luck when she broke her foot playing soccer with her kids the day before beginning shooting on "Amadeus." She was due to play Mozart's wife, but the producers dropped her when it became clear she was going to be limping for the seven weeks of the shoot.

Now she says she loves having a private life and just being with her children. She doesn't like being a public persona. She says she is quite shy, but she says when she goes out to talk about her book she has to find that extrovert part of her personality. she says she thinks if people have made the effort to come see her, it would be rude to stay in her shell.